The UAE courts the media to build its tech brand
With help from Anthony Adragna
The United Arab Emirates has spent the better part of the last 20 years reinventing itself as a tech hub. Now it's aiming for a broader role on the world stage — and its next play is for the media.
Last week, Sheikh Abdulla bin Mohammed bin Butti Al Hamed, chairman of the UAE National Media Office, gathered about 150 journalists and Washington personalities in the Ritz-Carlton in downtown D.C. to unveil 'BRIDGE,' a high-profile global media initiatives that will 'empower the next generation of storytellers, invest in ethical AI, champion press freedoms, and ensure that integrity remains at the core' of global news.
It's the latest of a host of recent events the UAE has hitched to big global trends. In December, Eric Trump and now-Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff spoke at Bitcoin MENA, a crypto conference held in capital city Abu Dhabi. Last month Dubai hosted the 2025 World Governments Summit featuring Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp, CNN CEO Mark Thompson and, via video call, Elon Musk.
At the BRIDGE launch event at Washington's Ritz-Carlton, waiters passed out dates and strong coffee before the attendees sat down for a presentation on the summit, which Al Hamed billed as 'an ambitious new global platform' where government and media industry leaders could 'set the agenda for the future.' He said a summit would be paired with a nonprofit foundation and hoped to foster media startups.
The plan was short on details, such as who would be at the summit or why, specifically, American journalists should attend.
But it also seemed completely plausible, given the UAE's role as a node in the global economy, and its rising influence on the American tech industry — including the Emirati MGX fund that backed the Stargate AI infrastructure plan announced from the White House.
BRIDGE also has a producer with a track record of bringing durable, landmark events to ambitious Gulf states: producer Richard Attias.
Attias, born in Morocco, served as executive producer of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland for about 15 years. He also was CEO of Saudi Arabia's Future Investment Initiative, and produced more than 1000 events, including the Clinton Global Initiative and the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which he co-produced.
DFD asked Attias what the goal of BRIDGE was, and he framed it as a helping hand to a struggling industry. 'The challenges coming from AI technologies and all this fake news and the social media which are not really under control, could really have some collateral damage,' he said. 'So we said, what can we do? How can we help the media industry?'
Gulf watchers said a splashy international media summit would serve another aim: training the world's attention on the UAE's rapid transformation into a tech powerhouse.
'The country is investing massively in digital infrastructure to become a global hub for the AI and post-oil economy — so I'm not surprised they want to take that further into the media sector,' said political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a Dubai-based nonresident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
Joshua Jahani, managing director of the New York-based Jahani and Associates investment bank that has worked with UAE sovereign wealth funds, told me he saw a giant media event like BRIDGE as a brand-building exercise.
'The UAE has taken materially successful steps to diversify its economy through international tech investments and domestic tech investments,' he said. Now, media was a key component. 'They have to be able to get the story out.'
The UAE is not the only Gulf country to try to cultivate global media brands as it builds out its tech sector. It's part of a regional trend, Dania Thafer, executive director of the Gulf International Forum, told me. Web Summit Qatar held its conference last month, featuring CNBC and The Wall Street Journal | Barron's Group as media partners.
And yet, there is a contradiction at the heart of the UAE's scheme to plant a flag in the global media conversation: it's an autocratic state with limited freedom of speech. The U.S. State Department has found that the UAE imposes 'serious restrictions on free expression and media, including censorship' and — ironically for a would-be tech power — 'serious restrictions on internet freedom.' Reporters Without Borders ranks the UAE 160th of 180 in world press freedom, behind India but ahead of Russia.
Asked about censorship, Attias said, 'I cannot comment, because I'm not aware at all about that.'
Jim Krane, an energy research fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice University, said he visits the UAE with university students and cautions them to avoid posting negative commentary online.
'I always tell them if you have anything outrageously negative to say, wait till you get home,' he said. 'It's a great launchpad for covering the region, but start looking inward at corruption or ruling family issues and you can wear out your welcome pretty easily.'
He believes he experienced censorship himself after he chronicled his time living in the UAE as a reporter in the 2009 'City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism.'
'It sold well in Dubai the first two years when it was out, but then when I would go to bookstores they would tell me they would not sell it unless it was being asked for by name, and then they told me they were not allowed to sell it,' Krane said.
(Abdulla, the political scientist, said he was a friend of Krane's and had been able to find the book in Dubai stores.)
BRIDGE will be held in Abu Dhabi in December 2025, and the attendee list is far from clear.
But in a world where many countries, the U.S. included, are seeing press freedom curtailed in the interest of business-minded leaders, the UAE might again be on trend.
'The lack of media freedom is outweighed by the access for investment, and it's just a great place to be, to cover an interesting part of the world that's getting wealthier and wealthier,' Krane said.
Abdulla concurred. 'Media freedom, press freedom is definitely a shortcoming, we admit it. But if you come over here, there are lots of freedoms across the board, social freedom, economic freedom,' he said. 'We over here think that is just as important as having political freedom.'
Crypto fought the law... and won
Bolstered by President Donald Trump's victory, some of the biggest names in the cryptocurrency industry are launching a new volley against the Securities and Exchange Commission.
POLITICO's Declan Harty reports that many of the biggest players in the industry who backed President Donald Trump's candidacy are now demanding accountability from the SEC — and in some cases payback — over its investigations.
That includes Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Ripple's top lawyer, Stuart Alderoty — who want the industry to shun law firms that hire former SEC employees involved in the crypto crackdown — and the billionaire Trump-backing twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who want the agency to fire anyone who handled an investigation into Gemini.
The pushback could boost legislative efforts to set up new boundaries around the SEC's authority over crypto, writes Declan. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), who leads the House Financial Services Committee's digital assets panel, said demarcating who should police the market will prevent 'some of the enforcement abuses we saw during the previous administration.'
Inside NASA pick's finances
Billionaire space enthusiast Jared Isaacman released his financial disclosures ahead of his Senate confirmation process to lead NASA — revealing a sprawling web of financial interests.
Chief among his assets is more than $316 million in Shift4 Payments, which provides payment processing technology. Isaacman, the founder and CEO Shift4, will resign from his corporate posts once confirmed, according to his ethics agreement.
He also reports modest stakes in major tech companies such as Alphabet Inc.; Amazon; Netflix; Paypal; Rivian; Nvidia; Tesla; Apple and Microsoft, among others, which Isaacman said he will divest once confirmed.
A group of seven Republican governors have urged swift confirmation of Isaacman to lead NASA, though his confirmation hearing has yet to be scheduled. Trump announced his pick for NASA in December.
The Senate Commerce Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on when it might schedule a confirmation hearing for Isaacman.
POST OF THE DAY
THE FUTURE IN ANOTHER FIVE(ISH) LINKS
Stay in touch with the whole team: Derek Robertson (drobertson@politico.com); Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@politico.com); Steve Heuser (sheuser@politico.com); Nate Robson (nrobson@politico.com); Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@politico.com); and Christine Mui (cmui@politico.com).
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